RIchard Gere – Memphis Flyer

My sister and I were trying figure out our Top 10 list of shows we’ve seen at the Orpheum. I included Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird with Richard Thomas, the recent Jesus Christ Superstar, and a production I saw years ago of Hello, Dolly! with Michele Lee. As a bonus that night, I got to meet the down-to-earth Lee, who I really liked.

But I added a new one this week: Pretty Woman The Musical, which I saw opening night, October 11th. It’s just great. The cast is amazing. The show is upbeat. It’s one of those feel-good shows in every respect.

One way I could tell I wasn’t the only one who left the theater feeling positive about life was the way everybody was being so nice to each other. They were cheerfully asking me what I thought about the play. A lot of smiles. It seemed like the majority of people out on the sidewalk were grinning and chatting away as they were about to embark in their vehicles. Nothing wrong with that.

I saw and liked the movie version of Pretty Woman starring Richard Gere and Julia Roberts when it came out in 1990, but I don’t remember much about it.

Of course, you’re going to compare the movie stars to the stage actors in the same roles. But the good thing is nobody is copying off of anybody else in the stage adaptation. Adam Pascal, who plays the uptight, money-hungry, unscrupulous, afraid-of-heights Edward Lewis, isn’t Gere. He seems more patrician, more of an old-money-looking guy than Gere’s portrayal. Both were great.

And Jessie Davidson was equally fine as Vivian Ward, the streetwalker who knows she’s supposed to be walking another path. She just doesn’t know what that path is.

The night I saw the musical was Davidson’s first official performance in the role. During the show’s standing ovation, Davidson was given flowers like her character was given flowers at various times in the show. But this time she didn’t toss them away.

Two of my favorites in Pretty Woman The Musical were the extraordinary Kyle Taylor Parker, who pops up as all different types of characters during the musical. If I’m not wrong, he got the strongest applause during the standing ovation.

It seemed like most of the cast members played a multitude of roles, changing from street people to Rodeo Drive dress shop employees to La Traviata opera singers.

I especially liked Keyonna Knight, who played the tough, funny, and tender streetwalker Kit De Luca the night I saw the musical.

And Trent Soyster, who played the “Giulio” the bellboy, made the show with every expression on his face as he reacted to whatever was going on — whether it was dancing with a mop or just realizing exactly what went on in the hotel room with Edward and Vivian the night before. He got a big round of applause, too.

Pretty Woman The Musical runs through October 16th.

Carla Davidson and Jonathan Elyashiv at “Pretty Woman The Musical” at The Orpheum (Credit: Michael Donahue)

Rachel Maxann at “Pretty Woman The Musical” at The Orpheum (Credit: Michael Donahue)

Gia Gates, June Orr, Monique Larocque, Layanna Willis at “Pretty Woman The Musical” at The Orpheum (Credit: Michael Donahue)

Diane Vescovo and Mike McLaren at “Pretty Woman The Musical” at The Orpheum (Credit: Michael Donahue)

Alice Kerley and Meggie Carrier at “Pretty Woman The Musical” at The Orpheum (Credit: Michael Donahue)

Ross Devlin and Caryn Hawkins at “Pretty Woman The Musical” at The Orpheum (Credit: Michael Donahue)

Kim Thomas and Eso Tolson at “Pretty Woman The Musical” at The Orpheum (Credit: Michael Donahue)

Ryan and Neely McDurmon at “Pretty Woman The Musical” at The Orpheum (Credit: Michael Donahue)

The word “entrepreneur” has its roots in a French word that originally meant something like “go-between.” By that definition, Norman Oppenheimer (Richard Gere) is a consummate entrepreneur. He runs the consulting firm Oppenheimer Strategies —rather, he is the consulting firm Oppenheimer Strategies. We first meet him, white iPhone earbuds in place, mapping out social connections on a Starbucks napkin. He’s trying to land a $300 million deal for …something. We’re not quite sure what. And neither are any of the people he gets on the other end of the phone.

But Norman doesn’t seem to get discouraged, even as door after door is slammed in his face. When his nephew Philip Cohen (Michael Sheen) describes contacting one of his billionaire targets, Jo Wilf (Harris Yulin), as “a drowning man waving to get the attention of an ocean liner,” Norman replies that he is “a very good swimmer, as long as I have my head above water.”

Norman’s consulting business basically consists of his trying to bring people together — he even consults with other consultants, he brags. But the biggest problem is, he doesn’t add much value to the deal. Whatever water he used to carry in New York is long dried up. Now, he’s just an old widower living by his wits, waiting for his luck to run out.

Richard Gere plays the titular role in Joseph Cedar’s Norman.

But then, Norman is hit with one final stroke of luck. After talking his way into an international oil-and-gas exploration conference, he sets his sights on Micha Eshel (Lior Ashkenazi), a Deputy Minister of Trade and Labor for the Israeli government who seems to be on the way out of government. The plan is to use Micha’s name to get a foot in the door with billionaire Arthur Taub (Josh Charles) and to use Taub’s name to get Micha’s attention. Both parties think Norman is friends with the other party, and he plays the two off of each other for influence.

If this plot is sounding unbelievably convoluted to you, that means you’ve got a good handle on Norman (full title: The Moderate Rise and Tragic Fall of a New York Fixer). The film is at its best in the early stages, when Gere as Norman serves as a sort of tour guide through the corridors of elite New York wealth and power. People in fine suits are unfailingly cordial, until they sense that Norman is no use to them and throw him out. That all changes when, after a story break of three years, Micha’s luck turns and he becomes Prime Minister of Israel. With a single warm hug at a state reception, people are giving Norman their card instead of the other way around. And that, of course, is when Norman gets himself in way over his head. What Norman thinks of as favors for an old friend, Israeli federal law enforcement officer Alex Green (Charlotte Gainsbourg) thinks of as illegal influence peddling.

Israeli-American writer/director Joseph Cedar has crafted a story that lies somewhere between The Manchurian Candidate and the Bill Murray/Richard Dreyfuss comedy What About Bob? His biggest directorial challenge is making scene after scene of Richard Gere talking on his omnipresent iPhone visually interesting, and he goes far beyond the conventional split screen by digitally blending the halls of power with whatever random Office Depot the borderline-destitute Norman happens to be drifting through at the moment. Gere, for his part, is at least taking the role seriously. He shares some crackerjack scenes with Steve Buscemi as a pugilistic rabbi and Hank Azaria as a younger hustler who latches onto Norman late in the proceedings. But still, none of that can overcome the fact that Norman is a fairly innocuous film. Its highs are not very high, its laughs never grow beyond a chuckle, and its lows leave you with a shrug rather than a tear. It’s good to see original ideas and mature, politically sophisticated subject matter get a chance in contemporary Hollywood, but simple competence isn’t enough to make Norman more than a passing curiosity.